Creation of a compact topologically nontrivial inflationary universe

By Andrei Linde. 2004

140 citations recorded by the source corpus.

If inflation can occur only at the energy density V much smaller than the Planck density, which is the case for many inflationary models based on string theory, then the probability of quantum creation of a closed or an infinitely large open inflationary universe is exponentially suppressed for all known choices of the wavefunction of the universe. Meanwhile under certain conditions there is no exponential suppression for creation of topologically nontrivial compact flat or open inflationary universes. This suggests, contrary to the standard textbook lore, that compact flat or open universes with nontrivial topology should be considered a rule rather than an exception.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Atmospheric Science, Statistical and Nonlinear Physics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/7df4636a7bff59f2cc0c4a3a7c6bf4fe4d335949

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Citations in the corpus

Inflationary Cosmology after Planck 2013 (2014, background): “It can be shown that such a universe continues expanding and remains homogeneous until the onset of inflation, even if inflation occurs only on a very low energy scale [68, 69, 70, 71, 72].”
Towards inflation in string theory (2003, background): “It can be shown that such a universe continues expanding and remains homogeneous until the onset of inflation, even if inflation occurs only at a very low scale [43].”
Beginning inflation in an inhomogeneous universe (2015, methodology): “There are also several methods for solving the problem of initial conditions for low energy scale inflation, see [6–11] and references therein.”
Sinks in the landscape, Boltzmann brains and the cosmological constant problem (2006, background): “This process may occur without any exponential suppression, practically independently of the initial value of the effective potential [58] (see also [59]).”
The tachyon at the end of the universe (2005, background): “[33] for one recent discussion of spatial topology.”
Hilltop inflation (2005, background): “(As noted in [52] such a conclusion is not inevitable if the universe is periodic.”
Inflation and string cosmology (2001, background): “Meanwhile, creation of the flat or open universe is possible without any need for the tunneling, and therefore there is no exponential suppression for the probability of quantum creation of a topologically nontrivial compact flat or open inflationary universe [108, 111, 112, 113].”
Inflationary paradigm after Planck 2013 (2013, background): “inhomogeneities to be smoothed by “chaotic mixing” [28,29].”
Escher in the Sky (2015, background): “Rather than describing some particular subset of inflationary models, it describes the most general approach to inflationary cosmology, which can easily incorporate ideas of quantum cosmology, eternal inflation, inflationary multiverse, and string theory landscape [22–35].”